iPhone X Spends Two Weeks in a River, Returned to Owner Unharmed

A woman’s lost iPhone X was returned to her in working condition — even after it spent two weeks at the bottom of a river.

The amazing story was highlighted in a YouTube posted by Man + River, run by a man named Dallas. The channel follows Dallas’ adventures diving into rivers, finding lost objects, and returning those objects to their owners.

On a recent dive, Dallas found a variety of objects, from Porsche sunglasses to a 10K gold ring. But eventually, he came across a submerged silver iPhone X without a waterproof case on.

Normally, you wouldn’t have much hope for a smartphone found at the bottom of a river. But Dallas attempted to get the device working.

He opened up the iPhone X, used a hair dryer, and eventually placed the waterlogged smartphone in a container full of silica gel. After three days of drying out, he plugged the iPhone in and got it to power up normally.

Dallas then contacted the iPhone X’s owner, a Florida woman named Alyssa.

Understandably, she was pretty ecstatic that her iPhone X had been found — and found in perfect working order. Alyssa told the channel that she had lost her Apple flagship in the river two weeks before the video.

Of particular note is that Alyssa, a fairly new mother, had had tons of photos of her newborn baby on the device. She was “devastated” when she lost the device since she didn’t back up any of the photos. The video ends with Dallas packaging up the phone to ship back to her.

Since the iPhone 7 lineup, Apple’s smartphones have all had an IP67 dust- and water-resistance rating. That means they’re rated to withstand 30 minutes underwater at a depth of about 3 feet. Two weeks in a deep river is obviously pretty far past that certification, so this story might illustrate the upper limits of that water resistance.

To be clear, we don’t recommend that you submerge your iPhone X. While it does have a measure of protection against the elements, water damage is not covered under Apple’s warranty.